午後時光
日子。心情。人和事
今年的五月份， 收到一封電子郵件。 祝賀Emmy 在2014加拿大讀書周寫作競賽中獲獎， 兼之核實住址， 會把250加幣的一個大型書店Indigo 的購物卷寄過來。才知道Emmy參加了專門麵對在校學生的全國範圍的寫作競賽， 獲得了十年級第一名。看獲獎作者和獲提名者的信息， 的確是有加東有加西,來自五湖四海。 評委團的組成也是有知名代表作品的加拿大作家們--看來這個競賽的影響麵還是比較廣的。雖然我對英文文學作品的欣賞能力有限，但是能在全國範圍內獲得頭獎，Emmy的英文寫作能力， 還是應該刮目相看的。
購物券收到時， 正趕上母親節。 帶Emmy Allen到Indigo選購他們喜歡書籍。 有了購物卷， 作父母的第一次不用付單了。 大家都很高興。書店裏除了圖書學習書房用品， 還賣一些日常的室內裝飾和女士用品， Emmy讓我選一樣作為母親節的禮物。 這裏的東西，基本上是文青小資的調子， 品牌也比較挑剔， 不是日常百貨商店常見的牌子。 好像沾染了書香， 價格也便昂貴了起來。 我選來選去， 挑了一瓶薰衣草味道的護膚露。 小小的一瓶，價格是外麵的兩倍。 Emmy 笑咪咪地說， "雖然貴了點， 可是這裏的東西很精致啊。 還是值得的。 再說我有購物 卷啊。” 。 看著不用自己掏腰包來買的物品， 我有點百感交集。 “ Emmy今天很富有啊，不用媽媽來付賬了。 250塊， 獎金這次很多啊”。 Emmy笑笑， “不算多吧， 還有幾千的呢。不過那得參加成年人的競賽了”。
下麵是我給拷貝上來的Emmy的小文：
Rock Sugar Sailor
We went, my mother and I, to the fall carnival on the hill with jaundiced dandelions. It was the eighth summer of my childhood, and was the first time I had ever thought it was all ridiculous. The autumn leaves had stained the backdrop of the scene shades of crimson, which I knew was really just a more pure version of the pink of my cotton candy stick that I gripped with a chubby, icy hand. Mrs. Walter had taught us that in school. We had hung up flags around our classroom that we colored, and they were red white and blue. We walked around until evening, when the paper lanterns that were strung along the stalls were lit up. We walked around and around some more under the little congealed pools of light. The leaves made a mush mush sound as I stepped on them. They were slick with rainwater. We came onto the starry night road and then there were sirens behind us and my mom’s hand was underneath a tire that came out of nowhere and I had dropped my pink cotton candy on the red puddle. I watched as the colors began to mix in the sugared strands. By the time I got into the cop’s car they would have equalized.
I sail ships now. Not literally, but in my mind. My theory goes that one of my ancestors was a relative of Christopher Columbus, something like Paul Columbus. He grew up in the shadow of his older relative who was really kind of a jerk. Paul wasn’t perfect. He had some anger issues, and wasn’t the most beloved anywhere he went. Nonetheless, he was never above admitting his flaws and always saved up his money from his shitty cargo transport job to take his girl on a night on the town. So it goes. It’s getting cold again, and the pill headaches always hurt worse in winter. When I go out on the campus at night I can freeze my tongue on icicles that dangle precariously down from the eaves of one of the gardener’s buildings. Sometimes I do, to try and recreate my childhood. I get stuck there for twenty minutes until the gardener removes the icicle with a pickaxe. I go home with a piece of ice stuck on my tongue. I go home thinking about whether or not that pickaxe was necessary. Sitting over hot chocolate on my laptop, I notice a typo in my cover letter, correct it, and go to bed. Not the same as before, but close enough.
When I close my eyes, I see the wide open sea, and it’s always a rainbow of blue, blue, blue. There are coral reefs and angel fish gliding by, and I can see them because the sea is clear and fresh and not a toxic waste dump. I sail my ship into a little seaside port with the little picturesque houses and the dewy mountains in the distance. I can’t go anywhere new, but delivering cargo is good too. I’m not an explorer. I’m Paul. Paul is close enough.
My friends convince me to go out drinking sometimes. Actually they convince me most times. I’m a fairly easy person to convince, provided you have enough arm strength to drag me along behind you. I scrape dirt off the table with my fingernail, which I guess is enough of a sexy pose. We drink screwdrivers, and then some weird Asian liquor Jamie bought off Ebay and hid in her jacket. We clink our glasses against each other, and mine chips. The glass specks settle, and I don’t bother to take a drink or pick them out. They reflect the blue fireworks that are going off for whatever the hell today is. It’s a mesmerizing storm of clear liquid shimmering with blue, a storm in a teacup, practically. It overflows onto the floor and spills down my leg when Karen pours some more in. Her eyes are half lidded and she tells me I smell like the sea, which I guess is a compliment. I have to go to work the next day, and leave early.
I volunteer in the hospital too. I hear it all the time too, that I’m lucky to have the chance to go to college and hopefully medical school and slice people up without getting arrested. There are kids in Africa that never get that opportunity. One of them is staring with pleading eyes at me from the cover of the magazine stand, please donate fifty dollars to buy me a goat. The air smells like disinfectant. I want to leave this place. The air here is too sterile and reminds me of my sad empty college dorm room and my sad empty life. Am I a bad person? Am I? Am I? Do I want to go away? I ask myself these things over and over again. I look again at the little African kid who’ll never get to awkwardly comfort a grieving family member. Am I a loser? Yeah, maybe.
Like my grandpa always said, “ ‘Long as you have money and a place to lay your head down, everything’ll turn out alright”. I’m alright. It could be worse. This is life; life is quite alright.
There are some little blue flowers growing on the hill near the cemetery, across the road from the bus stop. The summer grasses now blanket the hill with a rippling expanse of dirty olive. I know the truth, and that’s that the grass is blue. The magnolia trees dropping their fist sized flowers on the ground are an illusion, and to an extent so is Paul. This is not a revelation. I feel like a fool, and lie down on the hill, because the truth of what I think is really too much for this fool to handle. Sometimes there’s no other way in life but just to go on taking your meds and singing happy songs, but that’s close enough. Sometimes you can’t cry but do that weird huffy red eyed thing instead, which is further from the mark but still close enough. The tiny blue buds that face skyward with their yellow centers and delicate arching stems don’t care.
Still, the soft wind blowing reverently over heavy seeds and airy dust particles is real enough for me today. Sometimes the sensation of dew evaporating into the wind around midday from the moist earth makes me think sinking isn’t so bad.
宣布獲獎者的網絡地址：
http://www.bookweek.ca/contest_winners2014
這裏是Emmy獲獎文的鏈接：
http://bookweek.ca/files/PDFs/2014/grade10_winner.pdf
感謝陳大哥對一篇舊日誌的評論， 把將要被塵封的記憶又牽扯出來， 所以補上這篇日誌。 孩子們的成點長滴， 作父母還是應該盡可能得記錄一下。 等他們長大成人時整理一下送給他們， 應該是一份兒珍貴的禮物吧。
